CHAPTER XI.
CAPTURED BY MOQUIS
Too frightened to utter a sound, the others, who by this time had reached the summit of the cliff, gazed over into the inky depths beneath them. It was Merritt who first found his voice.
"Rob, oh, Rob! What has happened?"
"Don't ask me yet," gasped the boy below him, and, throwing himself flat on the narrow shelf, he peered over into the black void.
"Tubby, Tubby!" he called softly.
"Gee, that was a drop, all right!" came up a voice from below him.
The astonished Rob almost fell over the edge of the ledge himself in his excitement.
"Oh, Tubby, is that really you?"
"I guess so," came the voice below, "but I wish you fellows would hurry up and get me out of this; I'm hungry."
"Gracious!" thought Rob; "fancy thinking of hunger in such a position as he is in."
"I'm clinging to a tree," came up Tubby's voice. "I grabbed it as I was falling. It's only a very little tree, though, and I don't just know how long it'll bear me."
"Get in as close to the roots of it as you can," breathed Rob, hardly daring to speak above a whisper for fear of dislodging his chum by the mere vibration of his voice.
"All right," said Tubby, and Rob could hear him cautiously making his way along his slender aerial perch.
Rob turned his face upward and hailed his corporal.
"Say, Merritt," he cried, "take the fellows, and get back to camp as quick as your legs will carry you, and then get back up here again. Bring ponies and ropes with you – all you can get of them, and maybe Blinky and some of the men had better come."
"All right, Rob. But how about you?"
"I'll wait here. Hurry back, now."
"We will," and an instant later Rob was alone, and his companions were making full speed to the camp.
"How are you making out, Tubby?" called down Rob in a low tone.
"All right. But my legs are cramped. Gee! I was lucky to strike this tree."
"You bet you were. I noticed a few small ones clinging to the rocks as we peeped over, but I didn't think they'd ever be the means of saving a life."
"Don't holler till we're out of the wood. It's bad luck."
"Well, they ought to be back within an hour with the ropes. I guess they can get ponies up that trail."
"I hope so," groaned Tubby. "I don't think I can hold out much longer."
"Good gracious!" gasped Rob, "is the tree beginning to give?"
"No, without grub, I mean. I tried to eat some of the leaves off this tree, but they're bitter and don't taste just right."
"What! You've been moving about?"
"Sure. I've got to have something to do."
The very idea of any one's stretching their limbs in such a position as the fat boy's, almost made Rob's hair stand on end.
"Tubby must have nerves of steel," he murmured, "or else not know the meaning of fear."
Then he went on aloud:
"For goodness' sake, don't move any more, Tubby. The slightest false move might send you off into space."
"All right, I'll keep still," Tubby assured him, but in a free-and-easy tone.
"Well, perhaps it's a good thing he isn't scared," thought Rob; "if he were, it would make the job of getting him up twice as difficult."
For a long time he lay silent on the narrow ledge, so absorbed in the difficulties of the situation that he forgot everything. Even the recollection that there was a strong likelihood of the Indians pursuing them down the passage had entirely gone out of his mind – displaced by Tubby's accident. Suddenly the boy started up with a bound, which almost projected him over the ledge after Tubby.
A hand had been placed on his shoulder.
Before Rob could utter a sound another hand was placed over his mouth and he felt himself lifted from his feet. Peering down into his face, the startled boy could make out, in the faint starlight, half a dozen cruel countenances.
How bitterly he blamed himself for being thus caught off his guard! The simplest precaution would have kept him safe, but he had allowed the soft-moccasined red men to slip up on him without placing the slightest difficulty in their path. If ever a boy felt foolish and angry, it was Rob, as his silent captors slid noiselessly as cats into the black mouth of the tunnel of the cave-dwellers.
"I'm a fine scout to be caught napping like that," was his thought.
But as the redskins bore him into the narrow portal, they were compelled to release one of his hands. Rob took advantage of this to break a shrub, in a way which he knew would indicate as plain as print to any Boy Scout who saw it which way he had been carried off.
The next instant they were in the black tunnel. The Indians ran swiftly but noiselessly, bearing in their sinewy arms the powerless boy. Frightened Rob was not. His brain was too busy thinking up some plan of escape for that. His uppermost emotion was impatient anger at his folly. Even a loose rock, placed at the mouth of the passageway, would have been tripped over by the Indians, and thus have given him warning of their coming. Bitterly he blamed himself for his oversight. More bitter still were his thoughts, as his mind reverted to poor Tubby, hanging alone in space, without any means of knowing what had become of Rob, for the shelf, or ledge, on which the sudden drama of his taking off had been enacted, overhung the cliff face as an eyebrow does an eye.
On and on traveled the Moquis, almost noiselessly pitter-pattering along the dusty floor of the passage. They skillfully avoided treading on the carcass of the skinned mountain lion, and it was not long before they emerged in the bowl-like valley in which Rob had seen the solitary marksman who had made a sieve of his hat.
At the rocky portal the Moquis paused and grunted gutturally, and then started forward on a steady jog-trot once more.
"Well, this is a luxurious way of riding," thought Rob, as he reposed in the sort of armchair the arms of the Indians formed, "if the circumstances were different, I wouldn't mind taking a long trip like this."
It was so dark in the cup-like valley that the boy could see but little of the country. He only knew they were in the strange depression by noting how the dark walls upreared against the lighter hue of the star-sprinkled sky.
Before long, however, his tireless kidnappers began to trot along over rising ground. For what seemed hours they traveled thus. Presently the boy became aware of a faint glare in the near distance. At the same time, the short, sharp yapping of a mongrel dog was borne to his ears. Before many moments had passed, they came in sight of several tepees, pitched under a grove of trees in a small, and seemingly inaccessible, cañon. The cook fires were lighted, and big pots hung over some of them. Children, squaws and dogs swarmed about, the curs yapping and snapping at each other. As the Indians who had captured the boy gave a shrill screech, the village literally boiled over with activity. From the tepees poured braves and squaws and more children. All rushed forward to meet the returning redskins.
"Well, they seem glad to see us," thought Rob to himself; "wish I could say the same for myself. If only I knew how Tubby came out, I'd feel better."
As he was borne into the circle of firelight, the boy was surrounded by a curious, chattering crowd, who pulled his clothes about, and poked him inquisitively. Suddenly, a tall Indian, his face hideously daubed with red, yellow and black, emerged with a stately stride from a tepee covered with rude pictures of hunts and battles. He regarded the boy with a piercing eye for a moment, and then, raising his arm, pointed to another tepee, and gave some sort of an order.
Instantly Rob's arms were seized and pinioned by the Indians who had brought him from the cliff, and he was hustled over the ground and flung roughly into the tepee.
"So that's their game, is it," gritted out Rob savagely, every drop of his fighting blood aroused by the cold-blooded ferocity of his manner of entrance into the patched and smoky tent.
"Well," he went on, "there's no use getting mad, I suppose. Anyhow, it's a strange experience – captured by real Indians. That's more than any of the Boy Scouts at home can say, anyhow."
No attempt had been made to bind him, and Rob therefore peeped out of the flap of his place of confinement to see what was going on about him.
His experience of Indians had hitherto been confined to the Wild West show variety. He was deeply interested in the life of the tepee village, as he watched it busily moving about him. The savory smell of the Indians' supper, as they dispatched it, caused a strange sensation of emptiness about Rob's ribs, but no one came near him with food.
"I'll be hanged if I'll ask them for it," grunted Rob to himself, "especially after the way they chucked me in here."
When the meal was over, the braves pulled out their clay-bowled pipes and smoked stolidly. Not one threw even a glance at his tepee, and Rob began to think they must have forgotten him. He grew terribly thirsty, and not far from the camp there must be a brook, as he realized, by hearing the silvery tinkle, tinkle of its waters over the rocks.
"Well, as no one will bring me a drink, I'll go and get one," thought the boy to himself, and he boldly threw back the flap of the tent and marched out.
For an instant a wild hope flashed across him that he could escape. No attempt was made by any member of the smoking circle to check him, and the boy reached the bank of the stream without the slightest interference being opposed to his movements.
"I'll try it," thought Rob. "I believe they've forgotten me."
He placed his foot on a rock and was about to spring to the farther bank of the little creek, when a sharp voice behind him checked him abruptly:
"White boy, come back!"
The words came in the guttural, grunting tone that was unmistakably Indian.
Rob wheeled, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a gleaming rifle-barrel.
CHAPTER XII.
TUBBY'S PERIL
"That's queer; I don't see a sign of him."
Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help, peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain.
"He can't have gone over, too."
It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility.
"Don't suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby! – below there – are you all right?"
"Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, and you might tie a sandwich on it, if you don't mind."
"You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, as the others, despite their worry over Rob's disappearance, broke into a loud laugh at Tubby's unconcerned manner.
"Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who had brought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tying them together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet been informed of Rob's disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnerve him.
A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there was not sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. To haul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to the summit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure that great caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face. The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminder that he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them.
Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take a turn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was found about fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice.
"Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one end of his long line, "we'll see if this will reach."
He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that it rattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hear it and indicate in which direction he wished it swung.
"Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into the darkness and tentatively swinging the rope.
"A little more to the right," came up the stout boy's voice, as steady as if he was asking for another helping of ice cream.
"That boy's grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddy goat sometimes," muttered the puncher.
"How's that?" he asked a minute later.
"Wait, I'll reach out and grab it."
"Don't you dare do any such thing!" almost yelled the cow-puncher. "You might lose your balance, and – "
He stopped with a gasp. A jerk had come at the other end of the rope. Down there, out of sight, Tubby had hold of it. A succession of jerks told the holder of the rope on the cliff edge that he was making the loop fast about him.
"All right!" finally hailed Tubby. Then in imitation of an elevator runner:
"Go – ing up!"
"Hold on a minute," croaked out Blinky, even his iron nerve a trifle shaken now that the crucial moment was near.
He ran back to the tree and took a deft turn round the trunk. Then he extended the end of the rope to the boys and told them to "tail on."
"What are you going to do?" asked Merritt.
"I'm going to stand at the edge of the cliff and transmit orders from below. Mind you, obey them the instant you hear them."
"All right. We will, Blinky," came in chorus.
"Very well. Now hold on and when I tell you to start hauling, pull with all your might. That boy's a heavy load."
"A hundred and forty pounds and still growing," volunteered Harry Harkness.
"Well, that rope held a six-hundred-pound steer, so I guess it'll stand his weight. All I'm afraid of is a knot giving. I made them in the dark, you know."
The cow-puncher, after giving a few more final instructions, ran to the cliff edge.
"All right?" he shouted down.
"All right!" rejoined Tubby.
Blinky straightened up and turned back toward the boys, holding onto the rope.
"Haul away, boys," he ordered.
A cheer burst from the throats of the Boy Scouts as they tailed on the lifeline, and walked backward from the tree with it.
"Whoa!" came a shout from below suddenly.
"Whoa!" yelled Blinky, repeating the word.
"What's the matter?" he hailed down, as the hoisting movement stopped.
"Why, I'm bumping my delicate knees," came up in Tubby's voice.
"Can't be helped," yelled down Blinky. Then hailing the hauling line: —
"Pull away, boys."
Steadily they pulled till the fat boy had been raised twenty feet or more from his tree. Suddenly he hailed Blinky.
"Whoa!" roared the cow-puncher.
Instantly the hoisting ceased.
"Now, what is it, Tubby?"
"I just thought of something."
"What?"
"Say, lots of folks would pay money to see this, wouldn't they?"
"Never mind that now. Are you all right?"
"Yes, except my knees."
"Ha-ul a-way."
The boys on the other end of the rope hauled steadily now, and the fat boy drew nearer and nearer to the ledge.
As he rose higher, hanging suspended like a spider from the end of his gossamer thread between the sky and the ground, a sudden thought struck Blinky. It would be manifestly impossible to haul Tubby over the edge of the ledge which projected like the eaves of a roof. Hardly had the thought flashed across his mind before a shout of alarm came from the boys, simultaneously with a sharp:
Crack!
"The rope!" came a wild yell from the tree.
"It's broken!"
Blinky went white, and his knees shook. At the same instant the rope began to snake hissingly over the edge of the precipice. It had parted. Tubby was once more dropping downward like a stone.
"Catch it!" roared Blinky, regardless of his own peril, throwing himself onto the fast-retreating rawhide. He gripped it, but was carried like a feather before the wind toward the edge of the cliff by the descending Tubby's weight. In another moment – for he obstinately refused to let go – he would have been over the edge, when the line suddenly tightened.
"Hooray! I've got it."
The shout came in Merritt's voice.
The boy, with great presence of mind, had managed to catch the rope, and secure it before its end whipped round the trunk of the tree. As the knot which had parted was in the section of the rawhide above the tree, this was possible. Had the rope broken between the tree and the cliff both Tubby and Blinky would have been dashed to death.
"What parted?" roared Blinky, as soon as he had recovered his senses.
"One of the knots. It slipped. It's all right, now we've fixed it!" hailed Merritt back.
"Merritt, you're all right," shouted the cow-puncher, "if it hadn't been for you, I'd have been down among the cattle now. I'd have traveled by lightening express, too."
As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncher had done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out the meaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action.
The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the rope breaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby into a swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came up a cheerful:
"Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almost jolted the daylights out of me."
"All right, we'll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed the puncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened.
"Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after an interval of hauling.
"Yes, I think so. I can see a dark thing like a shelf right above me."
"Stop!" shouted the cow-puncher to the rope handlers.
The most difficult part of the enterprise was yet to come. They had to get the boy up on the ledge. To accomplish this at first was a poser, but Blinky finally solved it. Enjoining the rope handlers not to make a move till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reached the ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under his feet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blacker object than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound of humming. It was Tubby crooning to himself as he swung on the end of the frail rope:
"See-saw! see-saw!
On a s-um-mers day!"
"Well, I'll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, as he heard.
He knelt on the edge of the ledge and spoke to the vocalist.
"How's your nerve, Tubby?"
"Fine, but it needs feeding," was the cheerful response.
"All right, you'll do," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Now, then, Tubby, I want you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for just two minutes. Think you can do it?"
"I'll have to, won't I?" innocently inquired the stout youth.
"Yes, or – "
"Take a tumble," Tubby finished for him.
"Never mind about that," spoke Blinky sharply. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upward:
"Haul away! Slow, now!"
He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward through them.
"Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and sound as a ship's cable."
Presently Tubby was hauled up level with the ledge.
"Stop!" roared Blinky.
He could have reached over in the darkness, and, catching the stout boy's hands, have hauled him up beside him – he could have, that is if Tubby had been able to assist him by digging his feet into the rock face. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of the ledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and with four hundred feet of empty space under the soles of his shoes. Moreover, in such case the cow-puncher would have nothing to brace himself with, and there would have been grave danger of his being dragged over by the other's suspended weight. Instead, therefore – necessity being the mother of invention – he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shall soon see.
"Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered the cow-puncher.
"Yes," rejoined Tubby, reaching up.
"All right, then, grab it – and in Heaven's name, hold on!"
With a single swift stroke of his knife, the cow-puncher slashed the rope, leaving Tubby with the loop draped uselessly under his shoulders. The fat boy's hold on the edge of the ledge was all that now lay between him and eternity.
Blinky's breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the rope around himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seized the stout boy's wrists in his steel-muscled grip.
"Haul!" he bellowed.
The line tautened just as the cow-puncher braced his muscles.
"Stop!"
The line became motionless, holding the cow-puncher firmly on the ledge, while his hands gripped Tubby's wrists.
"Now," breathed Blinky to himself, bracing every muscle till they seemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features became contorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluck and grit won out, and after a few seconds of this Titanic struggle the stout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer.
"Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almost lost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptied sack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of the cow-puncher's arms.
"Hey, hold on, there! What's the matter?" roared Blinky in amazement, dragging him back.
"Gone out, by the great horn spoon!" he exclaimed, as the rescued boy sank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer.